How To Pull Your Hair Up With A Pencil

Updated on February 3, 2010

Hair held up with a pencil.

Putting your hair up with a pencil is a useful skill to have when you find yourself stuck without any hair accessories, after rushing out of the house or misplacing a hair scrunchie. Well, it's happened to me many times and when there's a pencil around (or pen) I'm don't hesitate to use it to hold up my hair.

Beauty tip: Once you get the hang of it, use this skill to create cute ways to put hair up with hairsticks (chopstick hair accessories).

Continue reading... to start learning how to tie your hair with just a pencil and nothing else.

Hold hair ponytail with hand.

Step 1: Hold Hair Up

Pull your hair back as if you were making a ponytail. (You can pull all your hair up or just part of it for a half-down half-up do.)

Grab your hair with your left hand and hold it in place.

Note: If you are left-handed you might need to hold your hair with your right hand. Your left hand will need to do the next step.

Twist and hold.

Step 2: Twist Hair

While holding the hair ponytail in place, twist your hair with your other hand. I am right handed; I tend to twist my hair with my right hand while holding the ponytail with my left hand.

Create a hair bun

Step 3: Create a Hair Bun

Continue twisting your hair while you begin to wrap your hair around to make a hair bun.

Stick Pencil in Hair Bun

Step 4: Stick Pencil Through Hair Bun

Holding your hair bun in place with your left hand, take the pencil with your right hand and stick it through the bun. Make sure to hold the eraser-end of the pencil.

The pencil tip should only be sticking out about and inch to an inch and a half.

Rotate the pencil

Step 5: Rotate Pencil

Take the pencil and rotate it about 180 degrees. Keep holding your hair in place the entire time.

Tip: If you hair feels too tight and you can't rotate the pencil enough to get to the opposite side, you may have grabbed too much hair with the pencil. This will happen if you stick the pencil right through the center of the hair bun. Grabbing less hair by sticking the pencil through just the edge of the bun works well and feels more comfortable. Where you stick the pencil controls how tight your hair will hold. However, you'll be surprised to know that you don't need it as tight as you think.

Stick pencil through hair again

Step 6: Switch Hands

At this point, you should have the eraser end of the pencil pointing to the opposite direction but make sure none of the pencil has slipped out. The lead tip should still be sticking through.

Now, switch hands by grabbing the eraser end of the pencil with your left hand (or whichever is holding your hair in place). Quickly use your other hand to hold your hair bun in place. Don't worry if a few strands come undone during the switch (especially if you have long hair) it should still hold up in the end. If you have shorter hair, you may need to be more careful about loose strands.

Step 7: Stick Pencil Through Other Side

Stick the pencil in a second time
from the opposite side until an equal length of pencil sticks out from each side.

Your Hair is done!

One pencil should hold up fine. You can use these same steps with chopsticks. If you want two chopsticks in your hair, take the same steps with one chopstix to hold up the hair. The second chopstix is just for looks and not necessary for holding up your hair. Just stick the second chopstick to create an 'X'